Rockford Sun

State Rep. Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford) sounded an alarm about the need for responsibility and transparency in budgeting in a Sept.1 Facebook post. He shared a link to the Center Square, which said the Illinois state budget is highly dependent on federal money.

"Unchecked spending by the Majority Party has led to ever-increasing taxes on our residents for decades," he said in his Facebook post. "A recent influx of federal dollars has allowed Illinois Democrats to paint a rosy picture of our state's finances while they continue their unsustainable spending practices that will inevitably cost Illinoisans in the future."

"We can reduce the tax burden on our residents through responsible and transparent budgeting," he wrote.

The Center Square article examined the state’s 2021 budget. It said a Pew Charitable Trusts study revealed that more than 30% of the state’s budget was federal funding, including Medicaid funds that were meant to beat COVID-19. The percentage of state revenue that comes from federal dollars will remain elevated through the current fiscal year, Rebecca Thiess, a manager of the Fiscal Federalism Initiative at Pew, said in the Center Square news report. “We do anticipate that along with other federal funds, including in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other legislation, we will see the increase continue on a temporary basis,” Thiess said, according to the Center Square.

The Pew document revealed that pandemic aid increased federal grants to the state by 49.64%, the Center Square said. A simultaneous spike in state tax revenue blunted the effects of increased federal aid, and shifting the 2020 income tax filing deadline inflated the 2021 fiscal year totals in roughly half of the states, according to the Center Square report. Tax receipts were also boosted by federal aid to businesses and individuals: stimulus checks, supplemental unemployment payments, expanded child tax credits, and business loans that could be forgiven if business owners met certain criteria. Individuals’ personal spending shifted too, the report said.

This isn’t the only time that Sosnowski has spoken out about budgeting. He also took aim at Democrats on May 26, focusing on sales tax holidays and the elimination of scholarships to help low-income families give their children other educational opportunities.

“The biggest takeaway from this budget is that the Democrat majority is voting themselves a second pay raise in the last six months while allowing the one-year sales tax holiday on groceries and school supplies to expire, which will hurt Illinois families during this time of record-high inflation," he said on May 26. "The elimination of the scholarship program that helps low-income families find better opportunities for their kids’ education is one of this budget’s worst and most willful oversights. In short, this budget raises the cost of living on local families, who are once again being shortchanged by the governor and his allies.”